Tag Archives: healthyandhappy

“Soup is cuisine’s kindest course.”- Virginia Woolf

We have just a few more spaces left on our 2016 Haven Writing Retreat calendar!

October 5-9 (full)

October 19-23 (a few spaces left!!!)

To schedule a phone call to learn more about the retreat, go to the Contact Us button here.

The days of summer are quickly coming to a close but the windows of winter fruits and vegetables are opening, especially with this gorgeous fruit. Yes, butternut squash is a FRUIT!

With a sweet and nutty taste similar to pumpkin, butternut squash is an excellent source of fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, manganese, magnesium, and potassium. Just what a writer needs to keep the heart and mind healthy and writing, writing, writing.

With this next delicious concoction, unlock the power and brilliance of your beautiful minds.

We have just a few more spaces left on our 2016 Haven Writing Retreat calendar!

September 21-25 (full)October 5-9 (full)

October 19-23 (a few spaces left!!!)

To schedule a phone call to learn more about the retreat, go to the Contact Us button here.

This may shock you:

Beethoven reportedly drank wine about as often as he wrote music. Stephen King doesn’t remember writing Cujo. Even Maya Angelou loved her sherry.

They all were quite likely deeply sensitive people who didn’t know how to handle all that they perceived. So they went into F**k It mode. I know F**k It mode well. People don’t have a lot of tolerance for it. They think it’s an affront on them. They think it’s a lack of self-control. They think that it’s weak. When in reality, it is an inability to know what to do with all those feelings. All that empathy. Booze and drugs stop the empathy. At least that’s the illusion.

And it’s not just artists. It’s anyone who feels deeply, as a rule.

So if we’re empowering ourselves as the deeply feeling people that we are, what if we were to look at it like when we are feeling, without blocking that flow, we are strong! We are complete! Those feelings can’t take us down! It’s the fear of them which is the problem. And an altered mind doesn’t give us all the fortification we need to fight the fear. Or, as I like to think instead, to love that fear into submission.

So how do we break old behavioral patterns, how do we train ourselves out of old thought patterns which find us in a place of suffering, woe, and even self-harm, self-loathing, or even self-violence? My way is gentle and luxuriant. Yes, it has to do with the awareness that we even have these patterns in the first place. But why not meet ourselves in this place with radical self-care in the most loving and gentle way…and easy?

For two weeks Haven Blog will feature custom drinks that you can make at home. They are designed by master mixologist, Meagan Schmoll of Whitefish, Montana, to help your state of being in the way that you so desire. And they are alcohol free. Enjoy! yrs. Laura

Drink #3: BEAUTIFUL MIND…

*served over ice

2 oz Oolong *Strong Tea*

1.5 oz Fresh Orange Juice

0.25 oz Clover Honey

0.5 oz Genesis’ Traditional Balsamic

3 Strawberries

1 Cinnamon stick

*Strong Tea*

3 tea bags or 9 grams of Oolong Tea

8 oz Boiling water

Let steep for 20 Minutes

Remove Tea and let cool

Place Strawberries, Cinnamon Stick and Honey in a pint glass. Muddle until Strawberries are squished thoroughly and cinnamon stick crunched well.

Add remaining ingredients.

Add ice.

Place shaker tin on top of pint glass giving it a firm tap.

Turn it over so the tin is in your bottom hand and the pint glass is in your top hand.

Give it a good hearty shake.

Strain from pint glass into an ice filled rocks glass, some refer to this as a Double Old Fashioned.

Garnish with half of an orange wheel, cinnamon stick and strawberry in a way the makes you feel creative and take a sip delighting in your Beautiful Mind.